Why Is It a Problem?
1. Plagiarism causes grade inflation
Faculty complain bitterly about the decline in student writing ability, yet students in writing-intensive departments tend to get very, very high grades on the final drafts of their written work. When plagiarism is rampant (and undetected and ignored), grades for papers tend to get compressed in the A/B range. Upon scrutiny, it is likely that a lot of these A and B papers are C ("average") papers at heart, peppered with enough of somebody else's A and B thoughts and phrases to lift the grades out of mediocrity.
2. Plagiarism hinders the proper pitching of assignments
If plagiarism is very, very common, faculty will quickly become convinced that students can write beautifully on difficult topics, with no need for much research and no need for rough drafts. And then, to challenge the students in future years, the naive professor will change the assignment so that the difficulty level is even higher.
3. Plagiarism cases at the CJC are huge time sinks
When faculty bring students to the CJC for plagiarism, they bring upon themselves numerous meetings with the student, the deans, and with the CJC itself. This time commitment is large, and certainly detracts from "teaching" and "research," the two aspects on which promotions are largely based.
4. Encountering plagiarism is depressing for faculty
Faculty, like students, enter Swarthmore with grand visions of what life is like at an elite institution. When the first plagiarized paper is encountered, this view is dashed.
5. Plagiarizers undermine their own education
If students get away with plagiarizing, their brains do not benefit from fully engaging the topic. "Struggling" with writing is a critical part of learning how to think. In addition, humbly acknowledging one's debt to past thinkers is important. Combating plagiarism and teaching respect of others' ideas are inseparable pedagogical goals.
6. Successful plagiarism encourages lifelong dishonesty
Studies have shown that unchecked plagiarism among undergraduates is often followed by more frequent (and more egregious) dishonesty later in life. If we want Swarthmore students to be pillars of ethical behavior after they graduate, we need to be forceful in our condemnation of unethical behavior while there are here.
7. Rampant plagiarism demoralizes honest students
Non-cheaters are not naive; they know a lot of their peers are plagiarizing, and struggle with the pain of seeing cheater finish their papers "in record time," and with a high grade. Honest students are further frustrated when they hear that a faculty member has detected plagiarism but does not invoke the CJC process, but instead gives the student a lower grade on the assignment, or just gives the student "a warning." Students know that "a warning" from one professor means nothing, because the next professor will be unaware that such a warning has already been delivered to the student.